Nokia Patents Vibrating Tattoos

A magnetic vibrating tattoo has to be one of the strangest patent applications in quite a while, but Finnish phone giant Nokia has filed a U.S. patent for just that.

According to the patent application, Nokia is proposing “a material attachable to skin, the material capable of detecting a magnetic field and transferring a perceivable stimulus to the skin, wherein the perceivable stimulus relates to the magnetic field.”

Or to put it another way, a vibrating tattoo.

That magnetic field would interact with the tattoo, causing it to vibrate in a certain way.

Nokia’s thinking is that in much the same way that you can have different ring tones for different callers, so too a future phone could emit a different magnetic field depending who is calling, or if your battery is running low, or you receive an SMS, for example.

It doesn’t have to be a tattoo; the application does talk about just a badge, but it is clear that some thought has been given to actually embedding this thing. There is a lot of talk about using “ink enriched by ferromagnetic or paramagnetic compounds” and how these would be applied.

Why? The application doesn’t specify, but you could imagine situations were it is either very quiet, or conversely very noisy, so some alternative form of altering system could be used, although quite why just vibrating the phone itself isn’t enough…

Comments (5 of 14)

I am a bit confuse if there will be a real tattoo that will be embed on your skin, is it removable by cleaning or what?
You guys should also visit this awesome site,matching tattoos it will give you additional idea about how great a tattoo was.

4:49 am May 23, 2012

Valerie wrote:

I went to 2005 Schoofs Prize for Creativity at the University of Wisconsin. I must be missing what you are referring to - I can't find anything similar but there is a lot of information there.

11:10 pm April 9, 2012

Dee wrote:

Finally, the prophesy reveals. The Mark of the "BEAST"

5:20 pm April 2, 2012

Bill wrote:

Nokia totally stole our idea from an engineering innovation competition a few years ago (except they made it creepy by embedding it). I look forward to receiving my royalty check in the mail, Nokia! [Check out the 2005 Schoofs Prize for Creativity at the University of Wisconsin.]

11:10 pm March 23, 2012

Truls N wrote:

What happens if you walk by a high voltage line? or like PAScientist wrote, what would a MRI machine do to you? There are so many electromagnetic fields that you walk thru every day without noticing it.

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